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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE NEW LIFE 

NOT THE HIGHER LIFE; 

OR, THE 

BELIEVER'S HOLINESS PERSONAL AND 
PROGRESSIVE. 



BY THE 

Eev. A. W. TITZER, D.D., 

PASTOR CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, "WASHINGTON, D.C., AUTHOR OF 
** ECCE DEUS HOMO;" "CHRIST, THE TEACHER OF MEN," ETC. 



' He that hath the Son hath ft/e."— Johx. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



IT 



I I ' 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
Ob Co* 1 * i r;ss 

WAaiJiNGiON 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada t 



PEEFACE. 



The title of this work will indicate its 
character and scope. The subject is discussed 
from a purely scriptural standpoint, and in a 
didactic rather than a polemic manner. 

I have sought to make such a statement of 
the doctrine, from the word of God, as to 
command, in its main features, the cordial as- 
sent of all believers of every Christian com- 
munion. Hoping that this little book may 
live, and prove a standard statement of the 
teachings of Scripture on this vitally import- 
ant subject, I dedicate it to all believers in 
our blessed Lord, of every name and de- 
nomination. May his blessing be upon and 
go with it ! A. w. p. 

Washington, D. C, Dec. 7, 1877. 



THE NEW LIFE, 

NOT THE HIGHER LIFE. 



TNUSUAL attention is directed at the 

^ present time to the work of God in the 

hearts of his people, and earnest cries are 

going up from thousands of believers for 

larger measures of personal holiness. 

In all portions of Christendom holy men 
and women are praying to be wholly sanctified 
in spirit, soul and body, and to be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord. 

Newspaper articles, more elaborate re- 
views, books by the hundreds, are issuing 
from the press, discussing the various phases 
of this most momentous subject. 

The doctrine of perfect personal holiness — 
absolutely sinless personal perfection — is re- 
l* ' 5 



6 THE NEW LIFE. 

vived in forms and from quarters that would 
startle good John Wesley were he now alive. 
Scripture is quoted on all sides, and believers 
in our Lord are in danger of being led astray 
by false and shallow teachers who have never 
thoroughly examined the infallible word of 
God. 

At the same time, a movement so wide- 
spread and pervading as that alluded to ought 
to have for every Christian a profound mean- 
ing. God's people are not satisfied with their 
present attainments in the divine life; his 
blood-bought Church mourns over her low 
estate, and from all hearts there is going up 
a longing, earnest prayer for more complete 
consecration, more conformity to the divine 
will. 

Anything that will help forward this move- 
ment toward greater personal holiness ; that 
will arouse Christians to a more thorough 
and diligent study of the sacred Scriptures ; 
that will incite the Church to lay hold upon 
the Lord our Righteousness and Sanctifica-* 



THE NEW LIFE. 7 

tion, — will assuredly command the appro- 
bation of every Christian heart. It may be 
that if, discarding all preconceived opinions, 
we come with teachable minds and hearts to 
the word, such a statement of the doctrine 
may be made as will command the assent 
of all believers. 

It is obvious to every thoughtful person 
that man needs a fitness for heaven no less 
than a title. He must have not only the per- 
fect right to enter there, but must also have 
those personal qualifications, those states 
of mind and heart, that shall make him a 
welcome guest in that holy and happy com- 
pany, and that shall enable him to join and 
delight in those pursuits that fill up the time 
of all the ransomed of the Lord. 

With capacities and qualities unfitted for 
the sinless holiness of heaven, with a heart 
out of tune with the ceaseless harmonies of 
the celestial country, the most valid title to 
enter and abide there would be — not a bless- 
ing, but a curse. 



8 THE NEW LIFE. 

Eternal life is God's gift, but it is also 
the personal property of every believer; he 
has eternal life. This life carries with it 
spiritual appetites and desires and capabili- 
ties; this life is holy; and this life is the per- 
sonal fitness of every saint for that heaven to 
which the blood and righteousness of Christ 
gives him the perfect title. 

The title-deed to the mansion in the skies 
is signed and sealed in the precious blood of 
the spotless Lamb and sinless Son of God. 
That title will stand the tests of time, the 
issues of eternity and the blazing light of the 
judgment. On this point the believer may 
rest, and ought to rest, untroubled and se- 
cure. 

I hear the words of love, 
I gaze upon the blood, 
I see the mighty sacrifice, 
And I have peace with God. 

'Tis everlasting peace, 
Sure as Jehovah's name; 



THE NEW LIFE. 

'Tis stable as his steadfast throne, 
For evermore the same. 

The clouds may go and come, 
And storms may sweep my sky ; 
This blood-sealed friendship changes not, 
The cross is ever nigh. 

My love is ofttimes low, 
My joy still ebbs and flows ; 
But peace with him remains the same — 
No change Jehovah knows. 

That which can shake the cross 
May shake the peace it gave — 
Which tells me Christ has never died 
Or never left the grave. 

Till then my peace is sure; 
It will not, cannot yield ; 
Jesus, I know, has died and lives: 
On this firm rock I build. 

I change, he changes not; 
The Christ can never die ; 
His love, not mine, the resting-place ; 
His truth, not mine, the tie. 

The cross still stands unchanged, 
Though heaven is now his home: 



10 THE NEW LIFE. 

The mighty stone is rolled away, 
But yonder is his tomb. 

And yonder is my peace — 
The grave of all my woes ; 
I know the Son of God has come — 
I know he died and rose; 

I know he liveth now, 
At God's right hand above; 
I know the throne on which he sits ; 
I know his truth and love. 

But purity always flows from and accom- 
panies pardon; the justified believer is always 
sanctified. When the Lord gives the blood- 
bought title, he always works in the accepted 
son the personal fitness for his heavenly home. 
For salvation in all its parts is one ; it is the 
application of the one grace of the one God to 
man. The links may be many, but the chain 
is one. 

To make clear to our finite capacities this 
mystery of redemption, the Holy Ghost in 
the blessed word speaks of the various parts 
of our salvation. Believers are said to be jus- 



THE NEW LIFE. 11 

tified, adopted, regenerated, sanctified, glori- 
fied ; but the work is one, and Christ Jesus 
the Lord is both Author and Finisher. 
"Whom he did foreknow, he also did pre- 
destinate to be conformed to the image of his 
Son, that he might be the First-born among 
many brethren. Moreover, whom he did pre- 
destinate, them he also called ; and whom he 
called, them he also justified; and whom he 
justified, them he also glorified." 

In order of thought some of these precede 
and some follow: justification precedes glori- 
fication; regeneration precedes sanctification ; 
adoption precedes the manifestation of the 
sons of God. 

Justification is the act of God wherein he 
pardons all of our sins and accepts us as 
righteous ; it is an act, not a work ; it is the 
act of God in his capacity as Judge sitting 
upon the throne, seeking after sin and set- 
tling the destiny of the sinner. It is instan- 
taneous, judicial, complete — never to be re- 
peated. The sentence of the Judge absolves 



12 THE NEW LIFE. 

the prisoner from all guilt, from all liability 
to punishment for his sins, and the precious 
blood of Christ upon the conscience takes away 
all sense of blameworthiness. Justification 
has respect to a man's legal status; the be- 
liever is released from the condemning power 
of the law ; there is for him no more condem- 
nation. He is as much justified the moment 
he believes and the Judge pronounces the 
sentence of pardon and acceptance as he will 
be millions of ages hence when he is a saint 
in the glory of confirmed holiness. An ad 
is something done and completed. 

Adoption is also an act — the act of God 
the Father — wherein he admits and enrolls 
among his children this justified sinner; 
gives him the name and the privileges of his 
children; makes him a full and equal mem- 
ber of his heavenly family. The ad of adop- 
tion, like that of justification, is a thing done, 
completed, finished ; it is never repeated, and 
can never be annulled. The justified sinner 
is as truly a son the moment of his adoption 



THE NEW LIFE. 13 

as he will ever be. "When God declares us 
to be his sons by the highest of all authority 
and acts, we are his sons and members of his 
family. 

Regeneration is the implantation of a new 
and spiritual life in the soul, whereby the jus- 
tified sinner is made a new creature in Christ ; 
it must of necessity be instantaneous. There 
was a moment, a second, when the sinner was 
spiritually dead ; the next moment, the next 
second, he was alive. 

Sanctification is a work, not an act; it is 
continuous ; it is the work of the Holy Ghost, 
working in the sinner the personal fitness for 
that heaven to which he has a valid title. It 
is progressive in the sense that God the Holy 
Ghost continues to work until the soul at 
death, made perfect in personal holiness, does 
pass at once into glory. " We all with un- 
veiled face, beholding as in a burnished mir- 
ror the glory of the Lord, are changed into 
the same image, from glory to glory, even 
as by the Spirit of the Lord." 



14 THE NEW LIFE. 

A work, as distinguished from an act, must 
be continuous — the work progresses unto and 
until completion. Every one must under- 
stand the difference between an act and a 
work; one is completed, the other is contin- 
uous. 

When we use the word sanctifieation, we 
mean the work of God the Holy Ghost car- 
ried on in the believer so long as he is in 
the flesh, transforming him more and more 
into the image and likeness of his blessed 
Lord. 

It is not justification, for it is wrought in 
one who has been justified; it is not adop- 
tion, for it is the work of God in the heart 
of his child, who has been made a member 
of his family ; it is not regeneration, for it is 
the development of a spiritual life that has 
been implanted, Sanctifieation, as a work, 
takes place in and upon one who has been 
justified, adopted and regenerated, and must 
therefore be carefully distinguished from each 
of these. 



THE NEW LIFE. 15 



DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS OF THE WORD 
"SANCTIFICATION" AS USED IN THE BI- 
BLE. 

Much confusion and dispute has attended 
the discussion of this subject, from a failure 
to observe the different senses in which the 
words " sanctify " and " sanctification " are 
used by the God-inspired writers of the 
Scriptures. 

These words are used in three different 
senses, viz. : 

1st. In the sense of consecration; to set 
apart to God, to devote to him. 

2d. In the sense of a work of God, as 
above described. 

3d. In the sense of personal holiness, as a 
quality of the state, habits and acts of the 
man. This personal holiness is the result, 
the fruit, of the act of consecration and the 
work of sanctification. 

It will be well, just here, to search the 
Scriptures, and to give examples from the 



16 THE NEW LIFE. 

inspired word in proof of the three differ- 
ent senses in which these words are used. 

The word "sanctify" is first used in the 
Scriptures in Ex. xiii. 2, where " the Lord 
spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me 
all the first-born of whatsoever openeth the 
womb among the children of Israel; both 
of man and of beast, it is mine." It is per- 
fectly evident that here no work of God is 
spoken of, nor is there the faintest allusion 
to holiness as a personal quality ; for Moses 
is commanded to sanctify the first-born of the 
beasts, who could not possibly be possessed 
of personal holiness. 

To "sanctify/' then, as here used, means 
to set apart, to devote, to consecrate to God. 
Jehovah claimed the first-born as his own 
peculiar possession — it is mine. 

In the nineteenth chapter of Exodus we 
find the word " sanctify " thus used: "The 
Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, and 
commanded the priests to sanctify themselves." 
In this case the priests were to sanctify them- 



THE NEW LIFE. 17 

selves ; it is their work, not God's. Personal 
holiness is not meant, for it was impossible 
for these priests to create within their own 
souls, in a few moments, this quality or state 
of heart. Here, as in the other case, sanctify 
means to set apart, to devote, to consecrate ; 
and in this sense it is frequently used in the 
writings of Moses. 

In the book of Joshua the word is used 
with the same signification. As Joshua was 
about to cross the river Jordan he command- 
ed the people, " Sanctify yourselves ; for to- 
morrow the Lord will do wonders among 
you." 

Passing to the New Testament, we have a 
number of notable instances where the word 
is used in the sense of consecration. One of 
the most striking is in the intercessory prayer 
of our Lord as recorded by John : " And for 
their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also 
might be sanctified through the truth." Here 
Christ Jesus, as the great High Priest of his 
people, consecrates himself to God ; he de- 

2 * 



18 THE NEW LIFE. 

votes himself as a sacrifice. Personally, he 
is already holy, for he was that Holy Thing 
born of the virgin mother; he was holy, 
harmless and separate from sinners. The 
work of sanctification of which he speaks, 
therefore, is no work of God in him, no per- 
sonal holiness which he creates in and for 
himself, but his own priestly act of devoting 
himself to God in his sacrificial work. The 
other clause of the verse — that believers 
" might be sanctified by the truth" — points 
to the work of God the Spirit in them, 
wherein he uses the truth as an instrument 
of their sanctification. 

Another striking example of this use of the 
word is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where 
the apostle speaks of the offering of the Lord 
Jesus Christ as being made once for all time ; 
and then Jesus, " after he had offered one 
sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the 
right hand of God ;" and then adds, " by one 
offering he hath perfected for ever them that 
are sanctified." The primary idea of " them 



THE NEW LIFE. 19 

that are sanctified " is, those who have been 
consecrated or set apart to God by the priest- 
ly act of the Lord Jesus ; and the mind of 
the writer is evidently impressed with the 
priestly act of consecration, rather than 
with any thought of personal holiness or 
any work of the Holy Ghost in the hearts 
of believers. 

The First Epistle to the Corinthians is ad- 
dressed " unto the Church of God which is 
at Corinth ; to them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus." The members composing the 
Church at Corinth are spoken of as those 
who have been sanctified. The act or work 
is completed — "them that are sanctified." It 
is obvious that the apostle does not mean to 
assert the sinless perfection, the completed, 
finished personal holiness, of these Corinthian 
Christians, for a perusal of this Epistle will 
reveal the sad fact that these saints were 
very far indeed from sinless perfection. The 
phrase, then, "them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus," must mean those who have 



20 THE NEW LIFE. 

been set apart, consecrated, devoted to God, 
in and by him as the great High Priest. 

There is another passage in the sixth chap- 
ter of First Corinthians relied upon by the 
advocates of sinless personal holiness in 
proof of that doctrine: "Such were some 
of you ; but ye are washed, but ye are sanc- 
tified, but ye are justified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." 
It is claimed that this passage proves that be- 
lievers are as completely and perfectly sanc- 
tified as they are justified, and that the sancti- 
fication spoken of here is personal holiness. 

Attention is called to the fact that this is 
spoken of all the believers at Corinth — not 
of those who had attained the "higher life" — 
of those who were sinlessly perfect — not of 
some chosen few who had entered perfect 
peace and rest — but of all the Corinthian 
saints, whose personal holiness was far from 
perfect, as is easily seen by the sins that 
are rebuked so severely in both of these 
Epistles. 



THE NEW LIFE. 21 

The mistake is frequently made of under- 
standing this sanctification in the sense of the. 
continuous work of the Holy Spirit. We 
must be constantly and carefully on our 
guard, lest we confound these different uses 
of the same word. 

If we understand the words " ye are sanc- 
tified in the name of the Lord Jesus" as ap- 
plicable to the great act of consecration per- 
formed for them by the Lord Jesus Christ as 
High Priest under the provisions of the cov- 
enant of grace, then we can readily under- 
stand that that act of consecration was just 
as complete and final as the forensic act of 
God in pronouncing them "justified ;" all for 
whom Christ offered were alike equally and 
completely sanctified and justified ; the sanc- 
tification and the justification were alike com- 
plete and perfect. Understood thus, the pas- 
sage is in perfect harmony with all other por- 
tions of the Epistle; understood in the sense of 
personal holiness, it is in direct conflict with 
the teachings and facts of the entire Epistle. 



22 THE NEW LIFE. 

Understanding the word in this sense of 
consecration, then there are no degrees; all 
who are consecrated by the High Priest 
Christ Jesus are completely consecrated — 
one as much so as any other; no one more 
so than another. In him all Corinthian be- 
lievers were justified, and all of them were 
sanctified. Many passages of Scripture might 
be quoted to show that the words " sanctify " 
" sanctified" and "sanctification" are used 
in the sense of setting apart, devoting, con- 
secrating, but the foregoing are sufficient. 

Considered in this light, as an act per- 
formed by the great High Priest Jesus Christ, 
it is true that the sanctification of all believ- 
ers is perfect; in him they are each and all 
perfectly sanctified, completely consecrated 
to God. 

Just as all Israel was sanctified under the 
old covenant, so all believers are thus conse- 
crated or sanctified under the covenant of 
grace — sanctified in and by Christ as Priest. 

The second sense in which these words, 



THE NEW LIFE. 23 

sanctify, sanctified and sanctification, are used 
is to express the work of God the Holy Ghost 
in the hearts of believers, enabling them more 
and more to die unto sin and to live unto ho- 
liness and God. 

The first use of the word designates the 
act of the Lord Jesus Christ in his office as 
High Priest; the second, the continuous 
work of the Holy Ghost the Advocate in 
the hearts of God's people. These two mean- 
ings are sharply defined and distinct, and 
must never be confounded. 

One of the best illustrations of the use of 
the words in this sense is found in John's 
Gospel, xvi. 17 : " Sanctify them through thy 
truth ; thy word is truth." The same idea 
is repeated in the nineteenth verse: "That 
they also might be sanctified through the 
truth." Most clearly a process of personal 
purification is here spoken of — a work of 
sanctification wrought in them with the truth 
as an instrument- 
In Ephesians, where the Holy Ghost speaks 



24 THE NEW LIFE. 

of the Church, he says, " That Christ loved 
the Church and gave himself for it, that he 
might sanctify and cleanse it with the wash- 
ing of water." The apostle Peter speaks of 
believers " who have purified their souls in 
obeying the truth through the Spirit." 

The prayer of Paul for the Thessalonian 
Christians is " that the very God of peace 
would sanctify them wholly" — i. e. in their 
whole being — not in any one part, but in 
the whole man. 

These examples are sufficient to show this 
second sense in which these words are used 
as descriptive of a continuous and progress- 
ive work of God the Holy Ghost — a work 
in believers, transforming them day by day 
into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is more difficult to find examples in 
the Scriptures where the words are used in 
the sense of personal holiness. In 1 Thess. 
iv. 3, 4 the word "sanctification" seems to be 
used in this sense : " This is the will of God, 
even your sanctification." The connection 



THE NEW LIFE. 25 

in which this occurs shows that the personal 
holiness of the Thessalonian Christians is 
here meant by the word " sanctijication" 
(See also Titus iii. 5; Heb. ix. 14.) 

In order, therefore, to a clear understand- 
ing of this subject, we must be careful not 
to confound these three different uses of the 
words "sanctify" and " sanctification." As 
attention will be directed subsequently to 
this aspect of the subject, nothing more need 
be added here. 

In the further discussion of this subject it 
will be considered in the second sense as just 
explained — viz., The work of God the Holy 
Ghost renewing believers in the whole man after 
the image of God y whereby they become possessed 
of holiness as a personal quality. 

It is a work of God upon one who has been 
pardoned, accepted, adopted, regenerated, and 
consecrated or set apart or devoted to God. 
Upon none other than such as are thus de- 
scribed does the work ever take place; and 
the very statement of the case shows that 
3 



26 THE NEW LIFE. 

sanctification in this sense is very different 
from justification as a judicial act, and differ- 
ent from sanctification as the priestly act of 
Christ in setting apart his people to God. 

The term "sanctification" is almost uni- 
versally used to designate the work of the 
Holy Ghost in the believer; it is thus used 
in conversation, in the papers and periodicals 
of the day, in pulpit ministrations and in 
books of theology. To use it, therefore, in 
the second sense, as above defined, is in ac- 
cord with general custom no less than with 
the word of God. 

KELATION OF THE LAW TO SANCTIFICA- 
TION. 

The divine law is the expression of the 
divine will, and consists of two parts — the 
precept and the penalty ; and each of these is 
equally of the essence of the law. A legal 
precept without any penalty would be not 
law, but mere advice; and a legal penalty 
without any precept would be not law, but 



THE NEW LIFE. 27 

capricious punishment. The divine law is 
expressive of the mind and will of God, and 
remains the rule of duty for all men through 
all time. 

The believer, though pardoned, accepted, 
adopted, regenerated, justified, consecrated, is 
still bound by the law as a rule of duty. To 
love God supremely is no less his duty now 
than before he was saved; and to love God 
thus is the fulfilling of the law. 

Many believers, however, make the sad 
mistake of looking to the law for their sanc- 
tification, forgetting that Christ is made unto 
us no less sanctification than righteousness. 
They are ready enough to admit that they 
are not justified by the works of the law, 
but quite unwilling to accept the truth that 
neither are they sanctified by the works of 
the law. 

The doctrine cannot be too urgently pressed 
that the law is as powerless to sanctify as it 
is to justify; it can no more give us personal 
holiness than it can give us legal standing : 



28 THE NEW LIFE. 

the law works wrath, but never righteous- 
ness; the law. works death, but never life. 

A large part of the Epistle to the Romans 
is taken up in the discussion of the relations 
of the law to life and holiness; and the apos- 
tle asserts these several things of the law — 
viz. : 

1st. The Law Reveals Sin. 

Rom. iii. 20 : " Therefore by the deeds of 
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his 
sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." 

Rom. vii. 7: "What shall we say, then? 
Is the law sin ? God forbid ! Nay, I had 
not known sin but by the law ; for I had not 
known lust except the law had said, Thou 
shalt not covet." 

It is true, the apostle Paul is here discuss- 
ing the relation of the law to justification, but 
the statement is none the less explicit that the 
law reveals or makes known sin. When the 
law of God is revealed to man, he then knows 
that all of his thoughts, words and deeds that 
are forbidden by that law are sinful, and that 



THE NEW LIFE. 29 

wherein he fails to comply with the require- 
ments of the law he is guilty before God. He 
does not have full and true knowledge of sin 
in any other way than by the law. 

2d. The Law Condemns. 

The law of God condemns every man who 
fails to obey or who transgresses its command- 
ments. 

Rom. vii. 9, 10 : " For I was alive without 
the law once, but when the commandment 
came, sin revived and I died ; and the com- 
mandment, which was ordained to life, I found 
to be unto death." 

Rom. iii. 19, 20: "Now we know that 
what things soever the law saith, it saith to 
them who are under the law, that every mouth 
may be stopped and all the world may become 
guilty before God." 

The law has no power to pardon, to cleanse, 
to save; it says, "Do, and thou shalt live; 
disobey, and thou shalt die." Its clear, calm, 
authoritative, awful voice is heard only in 
commands and condemnations. No one was 

3* 



30 THE NEW LIFE. 

ever justified, nor can any one ever be sanc- 
tified, by it. 

3d. The Law Brings us to Christ. 

Gal. iii. 23 : " But before faith came we 
were kept under the law, shut up unto the 
faith that should afterward be revealed ; 
wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to 
bring us unto Christ." 

When the sinner sees his own sin and ruin 
in the light .of the law, when he feels its con- 
demning power in his own conscience, and 
when his heart, and that God who is greater 
than his heart, both pronounce him guilty, 
then, driven from all hope of life through the 
law, he is driven in his despair to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. The law then reveals sin, con- 
demns sin, and leads to Christ, who takes up 
the curse and the condemnation of the law. 

But this law which condemns and kills is 
the law of Christ, who pardons and makes 
alive, and as the will of the King it abides 
as a rule of duty for every pardoned sinner 
— abides in all of its integrity, in all of its 



THE NEW LIFE. 31 

divine authority, in all of its exceeding broad- 
ness, reaching to the very thoughts and in- 
tents of the heart. And, compared with this 
perfect rule, how imperfect, alas! are the lives 
and hearts of all the saints! Nothing less 
than absolute purity and perfection, at all 
times, in all places, under all circumstances, 
in thought, in feeling, in word and in deed, 
will satisfy its demands as a rule of duty. 
The believer is bound to seek consciously, in 
all that he does and says at every moment 
of his existence, the glory of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. This is Bible holiness ; this is sin- 
less perfection; this is complete consecration; 
this is perfect sanctification. Alas ! who of 
all of God's people can say, " I have attained 
already unto this"? We look back over the 
lives of the saints in the past; we inspect the 
lives of the saints now living in the flesh; we 
examine our own hearts in the light of this 
law; and nowhere do we find perfect con- 
formity of heart and life to God's will as 
revealed in his law. 



32 THE NEW LIFE. 

SANCTIFICATION AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE 
LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 

In the sure word of God we have the lives 
of many saints who have gone to glory spread 
out with the utmost fidelity and fullness be- 
fore us ; we have their experience, left on im- 
perishable and infallible record by the Holy 
Ghost, who wall not deceive and who cannot 
lie. Their experience in this matter of sanc- 
tification is of the greatest value, and cannot 
be disregarded by any one who is willing to 
be taught of God. We cannot go far wrong 
in testing this subject by the lives of those 
who are called by God himself his own dear- 
ly-beloved children, and whose names are 
entered upon the Lamb's Book of Life, and 
who, upon the testimony of God himself, 
have entered into their rest and reward. 

Abraham, the father of the faithful and the 
friend of God, even after his call and regen- 
eration not only felt in his own soul the strug- 
gle between the flesh and the spirit, but was 
guilty of the sin of falsehood. 



THE NEW LIFE. 33 

Jacob's character presents us with a cease- 
less conflict between his old and new nature, 
between his better and his worse self, between 
his own selfishness and the love of Christ in 
his heart. Few persons of Scripture have 
received larger measures of contempt than 
Jacob ; his treachery, his meanness, his cow- 
ardice, have received the condemnation of all 
holy persons and of the holy God ; and yet 
there is a steady progress in his life toward 
God and holiness ; and in the end the grace 
of God triumphs most gloriously, and the 
aged patriarch, at death made perfect in ho- 
liness, passes up to the blissful presence of 
the Angel of the Covenant, who had been 
with him in all his sad and weary pilgrim- 
age. 

Even Moses— the greatest and the meekest 
of men, who spake face to face with God, who 
was honored in his burial as no other mortal 
ever was, and who was faithful in all his 
house,— this man late in life and near the 
promised land, so sinned against Jehovah 



34 THE NEW LIFE. 

that he was not permitted to go over Jor- 
dan into the goodly land. 

David, the sweet singer of Israel, the man 
after God's own heart, who did all his will 
save in the matter of Uriah ; whose holy- 
feelings, as expressed in the Psalms, have 
cheered and comforted the hearts of the 
saints of all lands for nearly three thousand 
years, — this man, so beloved of God, was 
guilty of the sins of adultery and murder — 
sins for which God punished him in his own 
family, and which sent him almost broken- 
hearted to the grave. 

Peter, in some respects the noblest of all 
the apostles, long after his conversion and 
call to the apostleship, in the presence of the 
enemies of our Lord and at a most critical 
period in his life and after the most solemn 
warnings, denied his Lord and Saviour, and 
added oaths and curses to that denial. And 
then, again, long after this and his repentance 
and restoration, he betrayed, for the time, the 
gospel of Christ's grace at Antioch for fear 



THE NEW LIFE. 35 

of the Judaizing teachers who came down 
from Jerusalem to spy out and abridge the 
liberty of the Gentile Christians. 

Transgression of the divine law is sin ; 
want of conformity to that law is sin ; and 
these saints knew in their ow T n sad experi- 
ence that, tested by that perfect and infalli- 
ble standard, by that law which was holy, 
just and good, they had not attained unto per- 
fect personal holiness, unto what many now 
claim to have, and call sinless perfection. 

In the seventh chapter of the Epistle to 
the Romans the apostle Paul details at length, 
with the utmost clearness and minuteness, his 
own Christian experience, his own personal 
conflict with evil ; and in this, guided by the 
Spirit, he gives a true picture of that spirit- 
ual warfare in which every Christian soldier 
must have and take part, and in which God 
gives the victory, and in and by and through 
which the Holy Ghost purifies unto perfect per- 
sonal holiness at last every one w r ho is called 
and consecrated, and in whom the Holy Spirit 



36 THE NEW LIFE. 

dwells. This experience is not that of an un- 
renewed man, but of one who has been born 
again, of one who is a child of God. 

Eom. vii. 15-25 : " For that which I do, I 
allow not; for what I would,' that do I not; 
but what I hate, that do I. If, then, I do 
that which I would not, I consent unto the 
law that it is good. Now, then, it is no 
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
me. For I know that in me (that is, in my 
flesh) dwelleth no good thing ; for to will is 
present with me, but how to perform that 
which is good I find not. For the good that 
I would, I do not; but the evil which I would 
not, that I do. Now if I do that I would 
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
dwelleth in me. I find, then, a law that 
when I would do good, evil is present with 
me. For I delight in the law of God after 
the inward man. But I see another law in 
my members, warring against the law of my 
mind, and bringing me into captivity to the 
law of sin which is in my members. Oh 



THE STEW LIFE. 37 

wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death ? I thank 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So 
then with the mind I myself serve the law 
of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." 

There are here words, phrases, thoughts 
and feelings that cannot possibly be applied 
to any one who is not a Christian. 

The unregenerate man does not consent 
unto the law that it is good ; he does not 
admit that in him, the natural man, there 
dwelleth no good thing; he does not affirm 
his hatred of the sin which he commits; he 
does not delight in the law of God after the 
inward man ; he does not find the desire in 
him to do good ; he does not with the mind 
serve the law of God. These are not the 
experiences of the natural man, of the unre- 
newed soul, of the unregenerate heart. No 
sinner who has not passed from death to life 
could possibly say or feel these things; no 
one who had not felt in his own soul the ter- 
rible conflict could thus graphically describe 
4 



38 THE NEW LIFE. 

its fierceness and bitterness ; no one who had 
not felt sin to be an intolerable burden could 
cry out, " Oh wretched man that I am ! who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" 
nor could any one not a child of God, strong 
in the power of the risen Lord, thank God 
through Jesus Christ. 

But these words do accurately, clearly and 
most forcibly describe the spiritual conflict 
which goes on in every renewed soul, in 
every Christian heart. The justified, regen- 
erated, sanctified sinner, the child of God, 
does know that this is, in substance, his own 
sad experience, his own mournful lamenta- 
tion; he knows that as a steward he has been 
and is unfaithful ; as a servant he has been 
and is unprofitable; as a child he has been 
and is disobedient. Daily does he mourn 
over his failures, infirmities and sins, and 
daily does he go to his Father in heaven for 
pardon and peace, knowing that if he con- 
fesses his sins, God is faithful and just to for- 
give his sins, and to cleanse him from all un- 



THE NEW LIFE. 39 

righteousness ; but that if he says he has not 
sinned, that he makes God a liar, and his 
word is not in him. 

In his own heart and life the believer finds 
from day to day that the good and evil are 
mixed ; the wheat and the tares are growing 
side by side in the same field ; the gospel net 
is taking fishes both good and bad. The 
more he knows of the spirituality of the law, 
of its exceeding broadness, the more he knows 
of his own deceitful and desperately wicked 
heart — the more ready is he to say with Paul, 
" Not as though I had already attained, either 
were already perfect; but I follow after, if 
that I may apprehend that for which also I 
am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, 
I count not myself to have apprehended." 

Jesus himself has taught his disciples to 
pray, " forgive us our sins;" and until he 
comes and his disciples are with and like 
him, they need to offer this petition. The 
saint who claims, and who has attained to, 
sinless perfection, to complete personal holi- 



40 THE NEW LIFE. 

ness, has outgrown and has no use for the 
prayer which Jesus himself taught all of his 
disciples to pray. This leads to the consid- 
eration of what is called 

THE TWO NATUKES. 

Properly understood and interpreted ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, there are in every 
believer two natures; and in the correct and 
scriptural exposition of these conflicting ele- 
ments will be found the true and satisfactory 
explanation of the strange and startling con- 
tradictions of Christian experience, and the 
explanation also of the language used by the 
apostle Paul in the 7th of Eomans. 

There have been two great representative 
men — the first Adam, the head of all those 
descended from him by ordinary generation, 
his natural children ; and the second Adam, 
the Lord from heaven, the Head of all those 
who have been born again, his spiritual seed. 
The new birth of the Spirit is no less real 
than the old birth of the flesh j the life de- 



THE NEW LIFE. 41 

rived from the second Adam is no less real 
than the life from the first. Every sinner 
is born into the world with a nature like 
that of Adam after his fall; every sinner 
born again into the spiritual kingdom has a 
nature like that of the second Adam ; he is 
a partaker of the divine nature; he bears 
the image of both the earthly and the heav- 
enly man. * From the one he inherits a sinful 
nature, from the other a sinless nature ; and 
this that is born of God doth not commit 
sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he 
cannot sin, because he is born of God. There 
is first the natural man, and afterward that 
which is spiritual ; the first Adam was made 
a living soul, the last Adam a quickening 
spirit. " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
Men are always ready to admit the fact of 
the life derived and transmitted from the first 
Adam, but there is a vast amount of unbelief 
as regards the fact and the reality of that life 
which is transmitted from the second Adam. 
No one, however, who accepts the infallible 

4* 



42 THE NEW LIFE. 

word of God can deny the reality of the new 
birth, the new life, the new nature. As the 
branch has vital union with the vine and is 
of the same life and nature with the parent 
stem, so the believer has vital union with the 
Lord Jesus, his Head, and is of the same life 
and nature with him. This truth is so fun- 
damental in all sound theology, so clearly 
and frequently set forth in the' Scriptures, 
that it seems incredible that any believer in 
our Lord should for a moment deny or doubt 
it. 

Not only do these two lives, these two na- 
tures, exist, but they co-exist ; they are found 
in the same man and at the same moment — 
one that is born of the flesh, and that is and 
remains flesh ; the other born of the Spirit, 
that is and remains spirit — the one that links 
us to Adam who fell, the other that links us 
to the Adam who is risen, ascended, and who 
is seated in the heavenly realm. 

This truth is set forth in the Scripture in 
such language as the following: "the old 



THE NEW LIFE. 43 

man and the new man;" "the life of the flesh 
and the life of the Spirit;" "the mind of the 
flesh and the mind of the Spirit;" "the life 
from the first Adam and the life from the 
second Adam;" "the nature according to the 
flesh and the nature according to the Spirit." 
If any man says that this is an inexplicable 
mystery, then the question readily suggests 
itself: Is this mystery any greater than the 
co-existence of the two elements, matter and 
spirit, in the one person, man ? Man is a 
unit, and yet he is composed of a material 
body and an immaterial soul ; and both of 
these, body and soul, are necessary to his 
complete and perfect personality. No hu- 
man wisdom, no philosophy of man, can 
explain the mysterious connection or union 
of the two in one perfect personality. The 
facts of the co-existence of the union and 
of the oneness of the personality are patent 
and undeniable. So the fact of the co-exist- 
ence of the two natures, the flesh and the 
Spirit, in the one personal believer, are also 



44 THE NEW LIFE. 

patent and undeniable. Our inability to an- 
alyze and explain this mysterious union and 
co-existence in the one personality does in 
nowise affect the reality or the credibility of 
the fact. 

In the incarnation of the Son of God we 
have another notable illustration of the co- 
existence of two natures in one personality, 
the Person of the Son of God. " Great is 
the mystery of godliness, God manifest in 
the flesh/' This fundamental fact and truth 
of the Christian religion has ever been, and 
is now, a stone of stumbling and a rock 
of offence ; and yet the life of Jesus of Naz- 
areth is utterly inexplicable, the most per- 
plexing of all mysteries, unless he is at the 
same moment and in his one Person both 
human and divine. In him the two natures 
do unquestionably co-exist. " In the begin- 
ning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. And the Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we 
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-be- 



THE NEW LIFE. 45 

gotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
The fullness of the Godhead and the fullness 
of manhood dwell bodily in him as one liv- 
ing Person. The precise nature of this hypo- 
statical or personal union of the two natures 
in the one person in the Son of God we can- 
not explain, but we are bound to accept the 
fact upon its own appropriate and sufficient 
evidence. 

Analogous, therefore, to the union of the 
material and spiritual in the one person whom 
we call man — analogous to the union of the 
divine and human natures in the one Person 
of the Son of God — is the union of the two 
natures, the fleshly and the spiritual, in the 
one person of each believer. The Holy Spir- 
it in the word uses a variety of expressions to 
set forth this truth of the two natures and the 
manifestations thereof: "In me, as to the flesh, 
there dwelleth no good ; and yet the will to 
do good is present with him. He does evil, 
but he hates it. There is a law in his 
members which wars against the law of 



46 THE NEW LIFE. 

his mind; a body of death, from which 
he prays in agony to be delivered." Paul, 
Rom. vii. 4. 

Again, in Ephesians the Spirit speaks thus : 
" That ye put off concerning the former con- 
versation the old man, which is corrupt ac- 
cording to deceitful lusts, and be renewed 
in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye 
put on the new man, which after God is 
created in righteousness and the holiness of 
truth." 

In Galatians v. 17 the struggle or con- 
flict is thus described : " For the flesh lusteth 
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the 
flesh, and these are contrary the one to the 
other, so that ye cannot do the things that 
ye would." 

Here, then, as descriptive of the believer 
and of his progress in the divine life and the 
spiritual conflict, we have the two men, the 
old and the new ; the two natures, the flesh 
and the spirit; two laws, the law in the mem- 
bers and the law of the mind — two lives, two 



THE NEW LIFE. 47 

forces, two principles, two impulses, in the 
soul of every believer, and these two always 
in conflict one with the other. 

Here is the true and scriptural solution of 
the paradoxes of personal Christian experi- 
ence; it is the ceaseless conflict between the 
old life of the flesh from the first Adam and 
the life of the Spirit from the second Adam ; 
and in this warfare the old man dies. 

TWO NATURES, BUT NOT TWO PERSONS. 

The language of the Spirit in the Scrip- 
tures on this subject is so very strong that 
some persons have thought and spoken and 
written as if there were two distinct persons 
in the believer, and that he was responsible 
for the deeds of the good person in him, but 
not for the deeds of the bad person. Per- 
verting the word of God and wresting the 
Scripture, they say : " Now, then, it is no 
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
me ;" and thus, alas ! they often go on in 
sin ; claiming that they are sanctified in 



48 THE NEW LIFE. 

Christ Jesus, and are not responsible for 
the deeds of the flesh. 

Against this perversion of the truth and 
wresting of the Scriptures too earnest a pro- 
test cannot possibly be entered. Although 
there are the two natures, principles, forces, 
as above explained — even two men, the old 
and the new — yet tjiere is but one person, 
and that one is responsible equally and alike 
for all the motions and manifestations of each 
nature. Just as the properties and acts of 
each of the two natures in Christ are ascribed 
to him as one Person, so also the man, the 
believer, in his one person is responsible for 
the deeds of the old no less than for those of 
the new man. 

It has become quite popular in these days 
and in certain quarters to speak of sanctifica- 
tion as a completed work, and that the be- 
liever is so dead to sin and so sanctified in 
Christ that the sins of the flesh are no longer 
his own individual acts, but the sins of an- 
other person. When the old bishop, who 



THE NEW LIFE. 49 

was also a lord, was reproved for his sins, he 
said that he sinned not as a bishop, but a 
lord ; but the answer was ready : " Well, sir, 
where will the bishop be when the devil is 
burning up my lord for his iniquities?" 

Just as man's personality is a unit, so his 
responsibility is a unit; and the fact that he 
is justified, adopted, regenerated, so far from 
lessening his obligation to cease from sin and 
to love God with all his heart, only increases 
and intensifies that obligation, upon the prin- 
ciple that we expect more from a child than 
from an alien. The law is not dead as a 
rule of duty, nor is the believer dead to the 
law, and all of his feelings, desires and deeds, 
whether of the old or the new nature, are 
equally and alike his. 

A most remarkable and precious statement 
of this truth is found in Gal. iii. 19, 20: 
"For I, through the law, am dead to the 
law that I might live unto God ; I am cru- 
cified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life 

5 



50 THE NEW LIFE. 

which I now live in the flesh I live by the 
faith of the Son of God, who loved me and 
gave himself for me." Truly, man does not 
live until Christ lives in him, nor does he 
ever work out his own salvation until God 
works in him the willingness and the power 
to do. Nor does the formation of Christ 
within us, the hope of glory, nor the new 
birth of soul, nor the indwelling and influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, in any wise impair 
or destroy our own proper personality, re- 
sponsibility and accountability.* 

Paul declared to the Athenians that all men 
live and move and have their being in God, 
but he did not attempt to give any scientific 
solution of the nature and method of the 
fact; so all believers live, move and have 
their spiritual being, their new and better 
life, in Christ, but no explanation is any- 

* For a fuller discussion of this point the reader is 
referred to Christ's Presence in Gospel History, by the 
Rev. Hugh Martin, than which nothing more schol- 
arly, scriptural and able has been written. 



THE NEW LIFE. 51 

where given of the nature and method of 
this vital union. 

God breathed into man and he became a 
living soul, with his own distinct personal- 
ity ; man disobeyed God and fell from his 
sinless estate, but in his fall he preserved his 
own self-conscious personality. Man regen- 
erated by the Spirit, and thus made a new 
creature, still carries with him his own in- 
dividual personality, his self-conscious identi- 
ty and responsibility ; and when the old man 
in him is dead and he is a saint in glory, 
he will still be the very same person. Nei- 
ther the fall nor the new life nor glorification 
affects or impairs the completeness of his dis- 
tinct, self-conscious personality. 

The conclusion is reached that there are 
two natures, but only one person, and that 
this person is responsible to God for all the 
desires and deeds of the mortal existence. 

The work of the Spirit in sanctification is 
upon the justified, regenerated, adopted child 
of God, with the two natures in his one per- 



52 THE NEW LIFE. 

son ; and the manner of the work is the put- 
ting off the old man, being renewed in the 
spirit of the mind and the putting on of the 
new man. This work of the Spirit is con- 
tinuous, progressing unto complete and per- 
fect conformity to the image of the Lord 
Jesus Christ; the old man dies, the new 
man lives. 

SANCTIFICATION PKOGKESSIVE. 
The believer is complete in Christ Jesus, 
and has in him all things ; " for he, of God, 
is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, 
and sanctification, and redemption. All 
things are his, and he is Christ's, and Christ 
is God." In Christ the believer is justified, 
sanctified and redeemed ; he is meet to be a 
partaker of the inheritance of the saints in 
light; he has been delivered from the powers 
of darkness ; he has been translated into the 
kingdom of God's dear Son, in whom he has 
redemption through his blood. But these 
and kindred statements of the word of God 



THE NEW LIFE. 53 

concerning the believer do not teach that he 
receives at once, or at any one time in his 
earthly pilgrimage, all that Jesus has to give; 
through time and eternity his saints will be 
receiving of his infinite fullness, and grace for 
grace. In him are hid all the treasures of t 
the eternal Godhead, and all the needs of his 
people shall be abundantly supplied out of 
those treasures according to his riches in 
glory. 

"Our salvation is all in our Father's 
bosom," and is brought to us from day to 
day by the eternal, incarnate Son. With 
him there is no element of time; all is an 
everlasting now. We live and think in time, 
and receive of his fullness from day to day, 
according to our needs. All things are ours, 
de jure, in him ; the "all things" are ours de 
facto only as we need them. Part of the in- 
heritance is ours to enjoy now; other portions 
of the same inheritance are reserved in heaven 
for us. He does not give us all wisdom at 
once and now; he does not give us all re- 

5* 



54 THE NEW LIFE. 

demption at once 'and now: we shall be grow- 
ing in the knowledge of the Lord eternally, 
and the redemption of the body will not be 
an accomplished fact until the resurrection of 
the dead, when he shall appear in glory, and 
our vile bodies shall be fashioned and made 
like unto his glorious body, and we shall ap- 
pear with him. The Holy Ghost does not 
complete his work of sanctification in the be- 
liever at any one moment of his earthly life, 
but carries him on from grace to grace, and 
then from grace to glory. 

The Rev. James Inglis of blessed mem- 
ory,* in an article of consummate clearness 
and power, showing the unscripturalness of 
the doctrine of "perfection in this life/' as 
held and taught by many, says : 

" Christian perfection is oneness with Christ, 
participation of his life, conformity to his 
image, and a joint inheritance with Him who 
gives unto his redeemed ones eternal life. 

* In the October number of the Waymarks in the Wil- 
derness for 1869. 



THE NEW LIFE. 55 

The very nature and excellence of it forbid 
the thought of its attainment here, but by- 
faith the believer now partakes of that which, 
as to its complete and unhindered enjoyment, 
will be his in glory for ever. Here our only 
true standard of holiness is Christ himself; 
and if we must judge as sin everything that 
was not in him while upon the earth, surely 
the boast of sinlessness will be silenced for 
ever among mortals." 

The Rev. Adolph Saphir, in his latest work, 
The Hidden Life, says : 

"All spiritual blessings are treasured up 
for us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 
Once we have begun to draw nigh to God, 
we must always continue to draw nigh. When 
David prays, ( Create in me a clean heart/ 
this is not the supplication of one who for 
the first time draws nigh. We need daily 
renewing, and whence can this renewing come 
but from above? To behold and to enjoy 
our spiritual blessings we must continually 
draw near to God." 



56 THE NEW LIFE. 

In discussing the progressive nature of the 
work of sanctification, let us turn to the sure 
word of God, and listen reverently to the tes- 
timony of God himself, the faithful and true 
Witness. 

The believer has a new life, a life from 
Christ, the second Adam, the Head of all his 
spiritual seed. In one aspect sanctification is 
the development of this life — a development, 
too, that takes place in perfect accord with 
the laws of spiritual growth. Food to nour- 
ish this life is spoken of as milk for babes, 
strong meat for men. Excepting the life of 
God, all life of which we have any knowledge 
whatever is a thing of growth, of development, 
of progress. 

Life in the flower, the fruit, the grain, the 
tree, is a thing of development, of growth. 
The seed has within it the germ of life ; that 
seed, when subjected to the proper conditions, 
manifests the life that is in it in the tender 
shoot, the blade, the stalk, the flower, the 
fruit, the foliage. 



THE NEW LIFE. 57 

There is growth, too, in all the forms of 
animal life. There is the babe, the child, the 
boy, the youth, the man. So the life-germ 
from Christ, implanted in regeneration, grows 
unto perfection. This growth does not ter- 
minate at any period in the mortal history of 
the child of God. The apostle Peter (2 Pet. 
iii. 18) exhorts all those who have obtained 
like precious faith : " Grow in grace and in 
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ." 

Paul, addressing the saints and faithful 
brethren in Christ at Colosse, prays that 
they may " walk worthy of the Lord unto 
all pleasing, being fruitful in every good 
work and increasing in the knowledge of 
God." 

The wise king describes the life of the saint 
thus : " The path of the just is as the shining 
light, that shineth more unto the perfect day." 

The great Teacher himself compares the 
kingdom of God to seed cast into the ground, 
which springs and grows up men know not 



58 THE NEW LIFE. 

how — first the blade, then the ear, after that 
the full corn in the ear. 

Here, then, we have growth, increase, the 
light shining more and more. These are the 
words used by the Holy Ghost to teach us 
the progressive nature of the work of sancti- 
fication in the soul. 

And the precise nature of this progress in 
the new life is clearly pointed out by Paul in 
his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (iii. 16): 
" But we all with open face, beholding as in 
a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, even 
as by the Spirit of the Lord." The progress 
is in the direction of Christ — to be transformed 
into his image, to become like him in thought 
and feeling, in word and deed. Christ is the 
great original ; believers are only copies, and 
can never be anything else than copies ; but 
the copy is to be a perfect image or likeness 
of the Original. The appeal here is to the 
Christian conscience and heart. Does any 
one claim to have attained Christian perfec- 






THE NEW LIFE. 59 

tion, sinless, personal holiness ? Then let 
him understand that this means that he has 
made all the progress that is possible in the 
new, Christ-given life ; that the exhortation 
to grow in grace and to increase in knowledge 
has no application to him; that no further 
growth or increase is possible to him ; that 
he is so much like Christ in heart and life, 
in word and act, the perfection of his like- 
ness to Christ is so complete that it cannot 
by any power, human or divine, be made 
more like him. If any believer makes this 
claim, then let him ponder the fact that it 
was never made by Abraham, by Job, by 
Moses, by David, by Isaiah, by Peter or by 
Paul ; and the whole tenor of the writings 
of these men is to the end that they had 
not already attained, neither were already 
perfect. 

Dr. Charles Hodge, an aged, wise, learned 
and experienced Christian, speaking of the 
believer, says : 

"His selfishness, pride, discontent, world- 



60 THE NEW LIFE. 

liness, still cleave to and torment Lira; they 
effectually prevent him from doing the good 
that he would; they prevent his living with- 
out sin ; they prevent his intercourse with 
Christ being as intimate and uninterrupted 
as he could and does desire. He finds not 
only that he is often, even daily, overcome so 
as to sin in thought, word and deed, but also 
that his faith, love, zeal and devotion are never 
such as to satisfy his own conscience, much 
less can they satisfy God. He is therefore 
daily called upon to confess, repent and pray 
for forgiveness." 

If the advocates of the "higher life" have 
attained to sinless, personal holiness, then a 
very large part of God's word is perfectly 
useless to them. All that relates to the spir- 
itual conflict, all the exhortations to grow in 
grace and to increase in knowledge, to mor- 
tify the deeds of the flesh, to confess sins, to 
draw near to God, — all these and thousands 
of others of similar import have no applica- 
bility to them. Nor have they any need for 



THE NEW LIFE. 61 

the constant priestly intercession of the Lord 
Jesus in the holiest place in the heavenly- 
temple ; sinless as he was and holy as he is, 
they are no longer in need of his almighty 
power, his ever-prevailing intercession. Even 
one clause of the Lord's Prayer must be omit- 
ted by the sinless ones — "Forgive us our 
debts." No perfectly holy man, who is per- 
sonally sinless, can with any sincerity offer 
this prayer, for he has no debts to God or 
man, and is free from all trespasses. 

This horrible result, when reached by true 
believers in our Lord who advocate the high- 
er life, must be due to one of the following 
causes : 

1st. Erroneous views of what is demanded 
of the believer. Perfection, as defined in the 
word of God, is loving God and our fellow- 
man supremely under all circumstances, at 
all times, in all places, and thinking and feel- 
ing and saying and doing all that we think, 
feel, say and do with the desire and purpose 
to glorify God and to bless our fellow-men. 

6 



62 THE NEW LIFE. 

Failure in any of these particulars, even for 
one moment, vitiates and destroys perfection. 
Do believers who claim to have perfect per- 
sonal holiness understand the meaning of the 
term "perfection" as defined in God's word? 

2d. Or it may result from not comprehend- 
ing what is meant by "sanctification." If 
they mean only the perfection of the priestly 
act of consecration setting them apart to God, 
then there is no doubt as to the perfection of 
that act; if they mean the work of the Spirit 
in the believer, then that same Spirit shows 
them their sad mistake in 2 Cor. iii. 18: "We 
all with unveiled faces, beholding as in a 
burnished mirror the glory of the Lord, are 
changed into the same image from glory to 
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord ;" and 
in 1 Thess. iv. 1 : " Furthermore then we be- 
seech you, brethren, and exhort you by the 
Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us 
how ye ought to walk and to please God, so 
ye would abound more and more." 

If the mistake of the advocates of the 



THE NEW life: 63 

higher life is due to neither of these causes, 
then they must consider the following fact — 
viz. : TJiat every passage of Scripture treating 
of sanctification is addressed alike to each and 
every believer. There is not one single chap- 
ter, verse, passage or word in the Scriptures 
that even intimates in the remotest possible 
way that there are tivo distinct classes of be- 
lievers — the partially sanctified and the per- 
fectly sanctified. The Bible speaks of be- 
lievers as one body of renewed people, but 
never of two distinct classes — one in the high- 
er and the other in the lower Christian life. 

The sure word of the Lord makes no such 
classification as sinless and sinful believers, 
perfect and imperfect saints, holy and unholy 
children of God. This new nomenclature is 
unknown to the word of God, and this new 
classification of believers into higher and 
lower is not only unscriptural, but is fraught 
with mischief and harm to individual Chris- 
tians and to the whole Church of Christ. As 
the Scriptures do not class believers as per- 



64 % THE NEW LIFE. 

fectly and imperfectly justified, wholly and 
partially regenerated, completely and incom- 
pletely adopted, so neither do they teach 
higher and lower sanctification, perfect and 
imperfect holiness. What they say on this 
subject is said equally and alike of believers. 

Another noteworthy fact is that the lives 
of the advocates of the doctrine of sinless 
perfection are not so much higher in holiness 
than those of other Christians who make no 
such pretensions as to vindicate either to the 
Church or the world the truth of that doc- 
trine as an actual fact. 

If there be the distinction spoken of, then 
surely somewhere in the history of the Church 
of God on earth there ought to be found the 
existing fact, the reality of sinless perfection, 
perfect personal holiness. But, alas ! the doc- 
trine, if true in theory, has never been real- 
ized as an actual fact; and so far as it is a 
practical question, this is conclusive against 
its usefulness. 

The appeal here is to the Christian con- 



THE NEW LIFE. 65 

science. Who of all of God's children will 
say that he is so completely changed into the 
image of Jesus Christ that it is not in the 
power of even God the Holy Ghost to make 
him any more like the Saviour than he is; 
and yet this is in substance what the advo- 
cates of perfect personal holiness must mean 
if they understand the signification of the lan- 
guage used by them. 

Alas, that any one should be led to say 
that for him there is no further progress in 
holiness possible — that he has no sins to sub- 
due or to confess; no further process of trans- 
formation into the image of Jesus needed or 
desired ! 

SANCTIFICATION IS OF THE WHOLE MAN. 
Paul's prayer for the Thessalonian Chris- 
tians (v. 23) is that " the very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 



66 THE NEW LIFE. 

The Greek word translated "wholly" is 
blozeAscz, meaning the whole in the sense of 
all the parts; and the truth taught is that 
the work of sanctification reaches every part 
of man's being and purifies the totality of 
his existence : the spirit, the soul and the 
body are all to be made like unto the Lord 
Jesus Christ. The work of sanctification, as 
wrought by the Spirit, extends to every part 
of man's being — to his body, his animal ap- 
petites, his thoughts, emotions, desires and 
volitions. 

The body is the temple in which the Holy 
Ghost resides ; the body is united to the soul, 
and is necessary to man's complete personal- 
ity ; the body is to be raised at the return of 
the Lord Jesus and made like unto his glori- 
ous body. The body, therefore, must be kept 
under, subordinated to the renewed mind, and 
the new man must mortify the deeds of the 
flesh and crucify the old man. The mind, 
darkened by sin and blinded by the god of 
this world, must be enlightened by the Spirit, 



THE NEW LIFE. 67 

so that the light of the glorious gospel of the 
grace of God shall shine into all the recesses 
of that mind and fill and flood it with divine 
light and love. The heart, still so deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked, must 
be cleansed daily by the Spirit of all truth, ap- 
plying the truth, the blood and the righteous- 
ness of our risen Redeemer. The will, so way- 
ward and perverse, must be daily taught the 
difficult but sweet and blessed lesson of sub- 
mission to the will of our Father in heaven. 
The unalterable and universal terms of disci- 
pleship are daily self-denial and daily cross- 
bearing and daily following the Lord in the 
regeneration. 

The believer may not satisfy himself by 
crucifying a thousand sinful motions of the 
flesh or inordinate affections and indulging 
himself in one cherished sin; if he offends 
in this one particular, he is guilty of violat- 
ing the whole law. He may not crucify all 
other sins, and live in the practice of covet- 
ousness or drunkenness or impurity or any 



68 THE NEW LIFE. 

other chosen and cherished sin ; all that is 
of, and that belongs to, the old man must 
die. 

In Ephesians iv. 22-24 the apostle Paul 
points out with great clearness the method 
of this work of sanctification. It is " putting 
off the old man, which is corrupt according 
to deceitful lusts ;" it is " being renewed in 
the spirit of your mind ;" it is " putting on 
the new man, created in righteousness and 
the holiness of truth." And this process is 
to go on daily so long as the old and the new 
man abide together in the flesh. 

And if any man wishes to know what this 
"putting on and off" means, the explanation 
is immediately added — viz. : " Put away ly- 
ing ;" " speak the truth ;" " let not the sun go 
down upon your wrath;" "neither give place 
to the devil ;" " steal no more;" "use no cor- 
rupt communication;" "put away all bitter- 
ness, malice and evil-speaking." It is daily 
" putting off" the old man with his deceitful 
and corrupt desires — " daily" because the old 



THE NEW LIFE. 69 

man is alive every day until the grave closes 
over him. It is being daily renewed in the 
spirit of the mind, because without this daily 
renewing the spiritual man cannot grow ; the 
renewal is growth. It is daily putting on 
habits of right-doing and holiness, without 
which no one can attain the stature of Chris- 
tian manhood. 

In this process of purification under the 
operations of the Holy Ghost and the work- 
ing of the principle of new life in the soul, 
the believer finds that the whole current of 
his thoughts, feelings, appetites, desires, affec- 
tions and volitions is changed ; all that he is 
and does is now toward the Lord Jesus, into 
whose image he knows he shall some day 
come; he is ceasing daily to do evil, he is 
learning daily to do good. 

If he has grown old in sin, he must now 
unlearn much, if not all, of that life ; every- 
thing in heart, conversation or life contrary 
to the mind and will of Jesus must die. The 
old nature, old principles, old habits cannot 



70 THE NEW LIFE. 

enter the kingdom of God ; that kingdom in 
all its purity and peace is exclusively for 
those who are new creatures in Christ Jesus. 
The believer will forsake evil practices; he 
will control his temper and his tongue; he 
will drive anger and malice from his heart; 
he will cut off the right hand and pluck out 
the right eye in order that he may enter into 
life eternal. He will "add to faith, virtue; 
to virtue, knowledge ; to knowledge, temper- 
ance; to temperance, patience; to patience, 
godliness; to godliness, brotherly kindness; 
to brotherly kindness, charity." He will cry 
out after the living God, and pant for him 
even as the hart doth for the water-brook. 
The new man lives and moves and has his 
being in the risen and enthroned Son of man ; 
his life is hid with Christ in God, and God 
is working in him to will and to do of his 
good pleasure; and yet the believer is all the 
while working out that salvation which he 
has as a present possession with fear and 
trembling. And here we reach the deep but 



THE NEW LIFE. 71 

blessed mystery of the coexistence and coop- 
eration of the infinite and the finite life : " I 
live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 

Thus human and divine activity coalesce 
and work together, and the product is per- 
sonal holiness of the same nature with the 
holiness of God. 

METHODS AND MEANS OF GROWTH. 

If the believer has a new life, then this 
can be developed in no other way than by 
action — by acts proper to the nature of that 
]ife. Just as physical life is developed into 
manhood and perfection by acts appropriate 
to that life, so in like manner must spiritual 
life grow unto manhood and perfection. The 
infant breathes, the babe reaches forth the 
hand, the child walks, the boy plays, the 
man thinks, feels and wills ; these actions 
are proper to the life, and in the very doing 
of these acts the life is developed and the 
child grows into the man. A man who 
should put forth no human act, who never 



72 THE NEW LIFE. 

moved or thought or felt or willed, would 
be not a living man, but a corpse. So 
if one claiming to be a Christian should put 
forth no Christian activity, should breathe 
no Christian air, utter no Christian word, do 
no Christian act, the conclusion would be ir- 
resistible that such a one was a dead Chris- 
tian. The new life grows by doing those 
things that are proper to that life. The fact- 
that the believer lives, moves and has his 
being in Christ, and that Christ works in him 
the willingness and the power to do Christian 
deeds, makes it the more imperative upon 
him to work out his own salvation with 
fear and trembling. 

The coexistence of the two lives, the power 
of indwelling sin, the efficient work of the 
Holy Ghost in the believer, are just so many 
powerful reasons why he should strive with 
all diligence to attain unto the very fullness 
of the divine life. 

Evidently, some Christians are living in a 
much greater nearness to God, have much 






THE NEW LIFE. 73 

more of his favorable presence, enjoy sweeter 
fellowship with his Son, than others. And 
the question is proper: Why may not all 
believers have the fullness of blessedness 
enjoyed by any one? Would not the same 
diligence and fidelity in the use of the di- 
vinely-appointed instrumentalities for growth 
in the new life ensure to every child of God 
the same nearness to the heavenly Father and 
the same sweetness of fellowship with the in- 
carnate and risen Son ? Is the life of near- 
ness and peace and fullness of Christian joy 
the heritage of only some few and favored 
children of God ? 

Alas that so many are content to live so 
far below their privileges and to have so 
little joy in their precious inheritance ! All 
who are born into the spiritual kingdom are 
babes in Christ, but it was never intended 
that these babes should remain for ever in 
the nursery. " Exercise thyself unto godli- 
ness " is the exhortation of Paul to Timothy 
— exercise thyself in order to growth in like- 

7 



74 THE NEW LIFE. 

ness to God. He who would grow strong 
in the Christian life must use the means 
appointed of God to promote this growth. 
There is work appropriate to every man's 
occupation — work proper to the mechanic, 
to the merchant, to the lawyer, to the physi- 
cian ; so also there is the work proper to the 
believer, and because he is a believer. There 
are works to be done by the Christian, and in 
the forthputting of the spiritual force needful 
to the doing of these works the believer makes 
progress in holiness. 

Holiness as a personal quality needs to be 
diligently cultivated, and by exercise unto 
godliness this holiness becomes fixed as a 
habit in the believer. 

All the qualities, powers and faculties of 
body, mind and heart are developed and 
grow strong by exercise; so all holy thoughts, 
emotions and purposes grow strong by con- 
stant exercise; and the exercise unto godli- 
ness results in habits of holiness. The facil- 
ity which we acquire in doing certain things 






THE NEW LIFE. 75 

by frequent repetition is almost incredible; 
may not the facility of saying, thinking and 
doing holy things by the same process of 
repetition seem to many almost incredible? 
The believer must cultivate holy exercises, 
repeat holy thoughts and emotions, until 
they become second nature. By repetition 
the holy thought becomes a habit, and the 
believer lives and moves and has his being 
in an atmosphere of holiness. 

Holiness, as a personal quality of the new 
life of the spiritual man, will come in no 
other way than by spiritual exercise of the 
new man unto godliness. It will come as 
strength of arm does to the blacksmith, as 
quickness and keenness of vision to the 
hunter or the sailor, as accuracy of aim to 
the marksman, as skill to the surgeon. 

But perhaps it were well just at this point 
to indicate more minutely how the new man 
is to become the strong man in Christ — how 
the babe is to pass from the nursery into the 
busy activities of the Christian Church, no 



76 THE NEW LIFE. 

longer a babe, but a man. The laws of nour- 
ishment, growth and strength in the realm of 
spirit are analogous to those that prevail in 
the physical realm. Life on earth and in 
heaven, in the natural man and in the new 
man, is subject to the same fixed laws. 

One of the most obvious laws of growth 
of all life is that the life must have, and as- 
similate to itself \ that food which is appropri- 
ate to the nature of the life. The plant, the 
insect, the animal, the natural man, must 
have food; without this the plant withers, 
the animal dies, the man starves; and the 
more nutritious the food, the more vigorous 
and healthful the life. Nor must it be for- 
gotten that if poison in large quantities is 
mixed even with the best of food, the nour- 
ishing properties of that food will be lost and 
the poison will do its deadly work. 

How all-important, therefore, for the spir- 
itual man to feed upon spiritual food un- 
mixed with spiritual poison ! How neces- 
sary, in order to robust, healthful growth of 



THE NEW LIFE. 77 

the spiritual life, that the new man partake 
daily and bountifully of that living Bread 
that came down from heaven. In other 
words, the believer must be sanctified through 
the truth; and Jesus tells us that the word of 
God is truth, and that holiness, which is a 
personal quality of the believer, is the prod- 
uct of the truth : " The New Man w T hich 
after God is created in righteousness and 
the holiness of truth." Eph. iv. 24. 

Just as God has appointed appropriate 
food to supply the wastes and support the 
life of the body, so also has he appointed 
food for the life of the renewed soul. Man 
shall not live by bread alone, but by every 
word which proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God shall man live. The Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments, this word which 
liveth and abideth for ever, is the bread from 
heaven for the life of the soul. 

The new and divine life in men must be 
nourished by the truth of the living God as 
revealed in his word : " Of his own will be- 
7* 



78 THE NEW LIFE. 

gat he us with the word of truth, that we 
should be a kind of first-fruits of his crea- 
tures; and believers are exhorted as new- 
born babes to desire the sincere milk of the 
word, that they may grow thereby." 

The living Christ must be conveyed to the 
heart and formed within the hope of glory, 
for thus are believers transformed into his 
image. Now, the word represents Christ to 
men precisely as he was and is. He is in the 
word, and is the word, and the word is radi- 
ant with his glory — the glory as of the only- 
begotten of the Father. 

How, then, to get Christ, without whom 
we can do nothing, into our hearts? Obvi- 
ously, in no other way than by hiding his 
word in our hearts. This is the true Bread 
whereof if a man eat he shall never hunger, 
and shall never die ; this is the food whereof 
if a man partake often and freely he shall 
have a healthful, robust, joyous life. " Thy 
word is more to be desired than gold, yea, 
than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey 



THE NEW LIFE. 79 

and the droppings of the honeycomb/' What 
manna was to the children of Israel in the 
wilderness, such is this word to all those who 
as strangers and pilgrims are journeying to- 
ward the heavenly Canaan. 

How great the folly of a man who should 
fast six days, and then hope, by partaking of 
food on the seventh day, to possess a health- 
ful, vigorous physical life ! And yet how 
many professed Christians pass whole weeks 
of spiritual fasting, abstaining from feeding 
upon the word, and then cry out in aston- 
ishment, " Oh, my leanness ! my leanness !" 
Let all such go daily to the written word, 
and there devoutly feed upon the divinely- 
prepared and appointed food ; and then, in- 
stead of these wailing cries, " My leanness ! 
my leanness !" there shall be heard the thank- 
ful shouts of praise and joy unto the Lord. 
The manna fell day by day, was gathered day 
by day, was eaten day by day. So if believ- 
ers now would eat day by day of the heavenly 
manna prepared daily for them, there soon 



80 THE NEW LIFE. 

would be a new tone of healthful, robust piety 
discernible in all the churches of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Alas ! that there should be so 
much spiritual starvation, when the Bread of 
life may be had so plentifully day by day, 
without money and without price ! 

A second law of growth is plenty of pure 
air. Without air all life becomes extinct. 

When Surajah Dowlah, nabob of Bengal, 
confined one hundred and forty-six persons 
in the Black Hole of Calcutta (a space less 
than twenty feet square, with two small 
air-holes), it was no wonder that when the 
night was past one hundred and twenty-three 
dead bodies were taken from the pit. In that 
foul and reeking atmosphere human life could 
not exist. Believers in Christ, who are long- 
ing for larger measures of holiness, may learn 
from this the importance of living in a pure, 
healthful Christian atmosphere. It was sim- 
ply impossible for one confined in that Black 
Hole to feel strong, well and happy ; and so 
there are many places — " black holes" may we 



THE NEW LIFE. 81 

not call them ? — in which, if the Christian is 
found, it is impossible for him to be either 
strong or useful or joyous. 

There are places, scenes and associations 
where the atmosphere is not only injurious, 
but destructive of spiritual life. Can Chris- 
tian blood be formed and Christian lungs ex- 
pand and Christian life be strengthened in 
the vitiated and foul air of the race-course, 
the ball-room, the theatre ? Can the believer 
enjoy any higher holy life in the midst of 
gambling and drunkenness and lewdness? 
Is not the atmosphere of these places, as a 
rule, absolutely reeking with moral poison 
destructive of the new and better life? Is 
not the charm of the race-course its gaming 
— of the dance its licentiousness — of the the- 
atre its debauchery ? Is it any wonder that 
Christians who frequent such places live a 
joyless spiritual life? 

The Christian parent who should send his 
child into a small-pox hospital or a plague- 
stricken community, where death was lurk- 



82 THE NEW LIFE. 

ing in the air and inhaled with every breath, 
would be esteemed a murderer: are those who 
go themselves and send their children into 
atmospheres reeking with moral pestilence 
less guilty of spiritual murder? 

Blessed be God that even in this ruined 
world there are some places pervaded with 
a sweet and pure Christian atmosphere ! — 
Christian homes and societies and churches 
filled with the very air of heaven, in which 
the believer grows rapidly in grace and in 
the knowledge of the Lord; where the Bi- 
ble is read and loved ; where daily duties are 
performed as unto the Lord; where devout 
prayer, in secret and from the family altar, 
ascends daily unto God ; where the Sabbath 
is a delight; and where "holiness unto the 
Lord" is written over the doorway to the 
house ! Believers who live in such an atmo- 
sphere as this are like the tree planted by riv- 
ers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in 
his season ; his leaf also shall not wither, and 
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 



THE NEW LIFE. 83 

A third fundamental law of growth in 
holiness is exercise. In the divine economy 
of spiritual growth there must be not only- 
abundance of food and plenty of pure air, but 
there must be the exercise of the faculties 
of the new man — the voluntary forthputting 
of spiritual life into spiritual actions. The 
believer must do the will of God. 

If the arm be bandaged to the body and 
never used, it will become paralyzed and use- 
less ; in order to health, strength and symme- 
try the arm must be exercised. Exercise is 
the universal and invariable law of growth, 
and the spiritual man must take spiritual 
exercise. He who has grace must use that 
grace ; to grow in grace he must exercise his 
grace ; grace for grace is the law of the king- 
dom. To him that hath and that useth shall 
be given, and he shall have more abundance. 

Many Christians are in an almost dying 
condition, simply for lack of spiritual exer- 
cise. Their gifts and graces are carefully 
wrapped in a napkin and as carefully laid 



84 THE NEW LIFE. 

away. The work for Christ in all of our 
churches is done by far less than one-half of 
the members. 3Sor is this surprising when 
we see how many are nearly starved because 
they will not eat the living Bread ; and how 
many are sickly and diseased because they 
persist in living in atmospheres pervaded by 
moral miasma ; and how many are too weak 
to stand alone because of spiritual inaction. 

Believers cannot grow in holiness without 
food and air and exercise. To any who may be 
desiring to live holier lives let it be earnestly 
and emphatically said : The three great laws 
of all growth are these — viz. food, air, exer- 
cise. If you feed upon the word, if you shun 
all worldly and live in spiritual atmospheres, 
if you exercise unto godliness, then indeed 
shall you grow in grace and be strong in the 
Lord and the power of his might ; and you 
shall walk in the blessed fellowship of a holy 
life with Christ Jesus the Lord. 

There is no royal road to personal holiness ; 
he who would shine in the holiness of Christ 



THE NEW LIFE. 85 

must walk with him daily in newness of life. 
The command of Christ comes with added 
emphasis each day : " Watch and pray, lest 
ye enter into temptation." The deeds of the 
flesh must be mortified, self must be denied ; 
the cross must be taken up ; and these things 
must be done daily. The word must be read 
and studied ; prayer must be offered ; evil as- 
sociations and companions must be shunned ; 
the worship of God in secret, in the family, 
in the congregation, must be observed. All 
diligence must be given " to add virtue to faith, 
and knowledge to virtue, and temperance to 
knowledge, and patience to temperance, and 
godliness to patience, and brotherly kindness 
to godliness, and charity to brotherly kind- 
ness ;" and when these things abound in the 
believer, then is he neither barren nor un- 
fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Je- 
sus Christ. The believer who is diligent and 
faithful in prayer and worship and works, 
who feeds upon the word, who shuns evil 
communications, who does Christian works, 

8 



$6 THE NEW LIFE. 

is the holy believer ; and he will find that 
his personal holiness is daily going on unto 
joerfection* 

SANCTIFICATION ENDS IN PEEFECTION. 
The believer puts on the new man, which 
is renewed in knowledge after the image of 
Him that created him ; he is a partaker of the 
divine nature, a member of his body, of his 
iflesh and of his bones ; by the Spirit of the 
1/ord he is changed into the perfect image of 
Christ from glory to glory. The result of 
the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification 
is personal holiness — that holiness without 
which no man shall see the Lord. This per- 
sonal holiness is not sanctification, but the 
result produced by the process of purification 
as wrought by the Spirit of the living God — 
not a physical or mechanical holiness created 
by God out of nothing, but a moral and spir- 
itual holiness produced by the co-operation 

* See The Healthy Christian, by the Eev. Howard 
Crosby, D. D. 



THE NEW LIFE. 87 

of the divine and human efficiency. When 
the work of sanctification is completed the 
holiness of the saint as a personal quality is 
perfect ; he is then holy even as God is holy. 

This is the end proposed by God in the 
redemption of his people — viz. their immac- 
ulate holiness of nature and life. The same 
omnipotent power that wrought in Christ 
when God raised him from the dead is also 
at work in each child of God. Paul was con- 
fident that he who had begun a good work in 
the saints would perform or continue, that 
work until the day of Jesus Christ. Every 
one who is foreknown of God, called and 
justified, will assuredly be glorified. 

The new life increases unto greater and 
greater strength and godliness. The light 
shines more and more unto the perfect day ; 
the believer becomes more and more like 
his blessed Lord ; when all of the old man in 
him dies the image of the Lord is perfect. 

The believer, dead to the law as a rule 
of life, lives now unto God ; crucified with 



88 THE NEW LIFE. 

Christ, nevertheless he lives ; and yet not he, 
but Christ liveth in him ; and the life which 
he now lives he lives by the faith of the Son 
of God, who loved him and gave himself for 
him. Christ lives in him as in a living tem- 
ple. 

"This is a new life — spiritual, Godward, 
altogether new, a new creature. With this 
new principle of life, this new creation in 
the soul, the Spirit of God, who is the Author 
of it, maintains a vital and uninterrupted con- 
nection, thereby dwelling in the believer hence- 
forth as in a living temple. He dwells in 
Christ's people, in a measure, as he dwelt in 
Christ himself. He reveals in them progres- 
sively the truth which he implanted and de- 
veloped in unclouded spiritual splendor in 
the intellect of the man Christ Jesus. He 
establishes in them progressively the grace 
with which he replenished the heart of the 
man, Christ Jesus. He conforms them to 
the First-born among many brethren. Their 
faculties as living men, alive from the dead, 



THE NEW LIFE. - 89 

he animates and controls. Whatever in their 
thoughts, affections, purposes, actions, is op- 
posed to his own, he sets himself to suppress; 
and the faculties themselves he undertakes to 
sanctify — to form and mould and guide into 
harmony with his own. Nay, their whole 
character, their very nature as living men, 
spiritually living, he works by his Spirit to 
assimilate unto his own." 

This process the Spirit continues until the 
image of Christ in the believer is perfect; 
then he thinks always the thoughts of Christ, 
and no other thoughts ; he has always the de- 
sires that dwell in the heart of Christ, and 
no other desires ; he wills always to do the 
will of Christ, and no other will. 

The soul of the believer is made perfect 
in holiness at death ; the body is made per- 
fect at the resurrection : then, the saint, soul 
and body united, enters upon the very full- 
ness of Christian perfection and glory. 

His intellect thinks the thoughts, his heart 
throbs with the emotions, of Christ Jesus his 

8 * 



90 * THE NEW LIFE. 

Lord. He and Christ are one in thoughts, 
emotions, desires, volitions ; there is not one 
note of discord in this harmonious coales- 
cence of the divine and human life in the 
believer. 

This is Christian perfection — one with 
Christ in the new life and the new nature ; 
one with him in his sufferings and death ; 
one with him in his resurrection and enthrone- 
ment ; one with him in his eternal kingdom 
and glory. The process goes on until its con- 
summation at the glorious bodily return of 
our risen Lord, when our present vile bodies, 
now the temples of the Holy Ghost, shall 
be changed and made like unto his own glo- 
rious body, and when all death and all sin 
shall be swallowed up in final and enduring 
victory. " When Christ, who is our life, 
shall appear, then shall we also appear with 
him in glory." 

When the work of sanctification has ad- 
vanced until the life of Christ. and the life 
of the believer are one, when the thoughts, 



THE NEW LIFE. 91 

desires, hopes, joys, loves, emotions, purposes, 
and volitions of Christ and the believer are 
one, then indeed has he attained unto per- 
fection, and that perfection the very holiness 
of the God-man Christ Jesus himself. 

This is not reformation, nor culture, nor 
self-wrought righteousness, nor human obe- 
dience to objective law, but it is life, divine, 
eternal life — Christ formed in his people, the 
hope of glory. 

Until the life of the risen Son of man in 
the believer issues in the unclouded glory of 
the resurrection life, he has not attained unto 
the fullness and fruition of his Christian per- 
fection. Then he, in his measure, shall be 
perfect even as his Father in heaven is per- 
fect, holy even as God is holy. His life will 
be one unbroken, joyous round of thinking 
God's thoughts, having God's feelings, and 
doing God's will. 

The Holy Ghost, taking the Lord Jesus, 
the Son of man, as his model, has wrought 
at his work on and in the believer until he is 



92 THE NEW LIFE. 

a perfect copy, the very image, of his Lord ; 
and just as the Son is the brightness of the 
Father's glory, the express image of his Per- 
son, so the believer, according to his measure, 
is the brightness of Christ's glory, the express 
image of his Person. 

This is the hope and the joy set before the 
child of God — a hope that shall never make 
him ashamed, a joy unspeakable and full of 
glory — to shine in the blessed holiness of 
God his heavenly Father, and to reflect, 
throughout eternal ages and to principalities 
and powers in the unseen realm, the radiant 
glories of the risen and glorified Son of man. 
And thus the life of Christ, who is the very 
fullness of Godhead and manhood, is pro- 
longed and perpetuated in the lives of his 
redeemed ones throughout the peopled spaces 
to the utmost limit of the universe, and for 
ever and for evermore. He that hath the 
Son hath life. Amen and amen. 

Thank God, that toward eternity 
Another step is won ! 



THE NEW LIFE. 93 

Oh, longing turns my heart to thee, 

As time flows slowly on, 
Thou Fountain whence my life is born, 
Whence those rich streams of grace are drawn 

That through my being run. 

I count the hours, the days, the years, 

That stretch in tedious line, 
Until, O Life ! that hour appears 

When at thy touch divine 
Whate'er is mortal now in me 
Shall be consumed for aye in thee, 

And deathless life be mine. 

So glows thy love within this frame — 

That, touched with keenest fire, 
My whole soul kindles in the flame 

Of one intense desire 
To be in thee, and thou in me, 
And e'en while yet on earth to be 

Still pressing closer, nigher. 

Oh, that I soon might thee behold 

I count the moments o'er ! 
Ah ! come ere yet my heart grows cold, 

And cannot call thee more ; 
Come in thy glory, for thy Bride 
Hath girt her for the holy tide, 

And waiteth at the door. 



94 THE NEW LIFE. 

And since thy Spirit spreads abroad 

The oil of grace in me, 
And thou art inly near me, Lord, 

And I am lost in thee, 
So shines in me the living Light, 
And steadfast burns my lamp and bright, 

To greet thee joyously. 

" Come !" is the voice, then, of thy Bride ; 

She loudly prays thee come ; 
With faithful heart she long hath cried, 

" Come quickly, Jesus ! come ! 
Come, O my Bridegroom, Lamb of God ; 
Thou knowest I am thine, my Lord ; 

Come down and take me home." 

Yet be the hour, that none can tell, 

Left wholly to thy choice, 
Although I know thou lovest well 

That I with heart and voice 
Should bid thee come, and from this day 
Care but to meet thee on the way, 

And at thy sight rejoice. 

I joy that from thy love divine 
No power can part me now ; 

That I may dare to call thee mine, 
My Friend, my Lord, avow ; 



THE NEW LIFE. 95 

That I, Prince of life ! shall be 
Made wholly one in heaven with thee ; 
My portion, Lord, art thou. 

And therefore do my thanks o'erflow 

That one more year is gone, 
And of this time, so poor, so slow, 

Another step is won ; 
And with a heart that may not wait 
Toward yonder distant golden gate 

I journey gladly on. 

And when the wearied hands grow weak, 

And wearied knees give way, 
To sinking faith oh quickly speak, 

And make thine arm my stay, 
That so my heart drink in new strength, 
And I speed on, nor feel the length 

Nor steepness of the way. 

Then on, my soul ! with fearless faith ; 

Let naught thy tenor move, 
Nor aught that earthly pleasure saith 

E'er tempt thy steps to rove. 
If slow thy course seem o'er the waste, 
Mount upward with the eagle's haste 

On wings of tireless love. 

O Jesus ! all my soul hath flown 
Already up to thee ; 



96 THE NEW LIFE. 

For thou, in whom is love alone, 

Hast wholly conquered me. 
Farewell, ye phantoms, day and year ! 
Eternity is round me here, 

Since, Lord, I live in thee. 

[Composed by A. H. Francke (1691), on his journey 
to Gotha after his expulsion from Erfurt.] 



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76? 



